NOW CLOSED Rustle up James Martin's delicious potato dish with your child(ren) for your chance to win £50 Love2Shop vouchers

[AnnMumsnet]

This month, James Martin has sent our MN Potato Councillors another of his delicious recipes, created especially for manyfacesofpotatoes.co.uk - Fish Cakes with Lemon & Basil Mayonnaise, ready in 30 minutes from prep to plate. The Councillors have been challenged to cook the dish for their families and share their feedback on this thread.

Manyfacesofpotatoes.co.uk say "This is the final thread for the MN Potato Councillors, so we've decided to add a bit of a twist and we're asking that our Councillors' children get stuck in too! Of course health and safety is everyone's number one priority, so we're not asking that they boil the potatoes or fry off the cakes, but getting them involved with the prep, like mashing the spuds or folding the mixture, could be lots of fun".

What's more, they are asking that, where possible, the Councillors post feedback on this thread on behalf of their children too. Please let us know: whether they enjoyed making the dish with you and what they thought of the taste.

As always, we want to give the entire MN community, and in this case your children too, the option to taste and review James' fish cakes so, even if you're not one of our MN Potato Councillors, feel free to try James' dish this week and add your feedback on this thread. If you are unable to try it please let us know your own fishcake recipe or share what you would normally serve them with.

Do tell us: how easy it was to cook, whether your family enjoyed it and if you added your own twist to the cakes - maybe you already have your very own family favourite fish cake flavour?

If you have any questions on potatoes, please post them onto the thread and we'll endeavour to answer them asap.

Everyone who does so will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £50 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks, MNHQ

Oh and after all that I have a potato question too!

I'm just wondering about the relative merits of boiling/baking potatoes vs microwaving them...

Over the last few years I've got into the habit of using the microwave to cook veg - they seem to cook faster and as you use much less water they don't seem to be as watery as veg boiled on the hob. Even for jacket potatoes I'll zap potatoes in the microwave while the oven is heating up to give them a head start to help with fuel economy and overall time taken to cook them. Likewise for chips or roast potatoes I'll par-zap them instead of par-boiling them and if I'm doing relatively small amounts of mash then I'll microwave a jacket potato or two and mash the insides rather than boil potatoes and mash them.

I'm just wondering how much good or bad - compared to normal boiling or baking - I'm doing to the potato when microwaving it compared to if I had boiled/baked it - or if there isn't much in it. Some people say that boiling can lead to nutrients being lost in the water whereas other people worry about the zapping factor causing dangers.

So - Just wondered if you had any insight or thoughts on this - should I give up zapping things or can I carry on in the knowledge that I'll have more vitamins left at the end of the cooking for example?

Thanks!

This seems like a lot of effort.

I might make it if I had left over mash potatoes :)

OK, a bit late with feedback for our last one, but we've been away a lot and a bit disorganised in filling it in!

I left most of the prep to DD, who competently got on with it - though I wasn't sure whether we were meant to cook the salmon or not before mixing everything, as I thought that the instructions ...either salmon/smoked salmon was a different kettle of fish, literally, depending on which you used. So we cooked the salmon beforehand.

It was fairly simple to do, though we decided to skip the mayonnaise and use ready made, as finding green onions was a step too far for my local shop. (Now reading the thread I learn that they are in fact spring onions - duh!)

The fishcakes were OK - though my DD's feedback is 'they're alright, a bit more like a fish potato pancake though, and a bit dry'.

I don't think we'd do this one again as our own recipe for fishcakes works well but they tasted fair enough.

Out of all the recipes the first one we tried, salmon parcels, was the most successful and I've already done a couple of variations on this, with the potatoes cut finely and put in the parcel too, which is the 'new thing I've learnt about potatoes'.

Thanks for the opportunity to try all the recipes - it's been fun trying out some new things, and I'll probably do a bit more than my traditional boiled variety in the week in future.

Sorry for the late feedback, we had a stomach bug last week and I couldn't have coped with anything fishy! Dd2 and I just made these and she thoroughly enjoyed the making and the eating. The kids just had theirs, DH and I will have ours reheated later.

Ease of cooking: Easy
Time it took: Fairly quick, especially with a helpful dd2 doing lots of chopping! They cooked through very quickly. From reading the tips on here I microwaved the potato which saved on time and washing up. We used shop-bought mayo.
Did you and your family enjoy the recipe? Dd2 loved them and tried the mayo too. Dd1 thought the mayo looked like snot but liked the fishcakes (except the parsley - too green, she said). Ds didn't want to try anything.
Anything surprising about potatoes? No
Will you be cooking it again? Yes, but I'll add more potato to make it go further and so they stick together better. They were quite small - to be honest, DH and I could polish them all off between us!

Dd2's comments: I liked squeezing the lemon and chopping up the salmon but the onions made my eyes water!

Really sorry for lateness of post.

We both enjoyed making this receipte although my DD aged 3 wasn't able to do much cooking! Although she wasn't able to chop anything she did enjoy washing the vegetables.

I'm afraid we had to swap the salmon for cod as none of it would have been eaten in this house. It tasted lovely with the parsley.

I looked at the small amount of potatoes and made an executive decision that it simply wasn't enough! So I chopped more potatoes and I think this helped keep them intact whilst cooking.

I'm afraid we opted for the Hellmans route and added the basil, lemon juice etc to it..

I'd most certainly cook this dish again although it would have to be my slightly adapted version for reasons given above. All the family enjoyed it and it was really quick to prep and cook.

Thanks for the recipe.

Aargh, so sorry for late feedback - made these last weekend but completely forgot to post! Only ds2 was intersted in helping me but was able to do a surprising amount on his own given that he is only 6. he really enjoyed making the fishcakes and was especially proud of the fancy mayo (we used Hellmanns...) pronouncing it to be delicious.

We eat salmon qute a lot but don't have fishcakes very often as ds1 is not keen on mashed potato and true to form he was unenthusiastic. Everyone else enjoyed them although dh and I added some chilli flakes to ours as we felt they lacked some spice. Personally I found it a bit on the lemony side but no-one else complained! We used plain salmon but I will try them again with smoked and/or a mixture.

I baked ours rather than frying and they held together fine. Quantity on the small side- fine for me plus 3 kids but one of those was the mash-hater who only ate 1. Not sure there was really enough for 2 adult helpings as well as 2 kids. Next time I might serve with some Cajun wedges just to up the potato quotient!

Just to say finally that I have really enjoyed being a Potato Councillor! It's been great trying out new things and even DH has been very excited (sadly) when each recipe has arrived. Whenever I serve up any potato related dish now he and DS1 ask if it is a Potato Council recipe and proceed to give feedback...a mixed blessing! Some recipes have become real favourites which is fab. Hooray for the potato!

Oh dear, last again! Do I win most disorganised mum on the trial!

Anway, we have actually made these fishcakes twice now, once with dd1 (5) which was loads of fun for both of us, and once with dd2 (2) which was, er, interesting!

The fishcakes themselves were very easy to make, we have made a variation on them many times before so nothing difficult to learn! DD1 enjoyed getting her hans messy making the mixture. She helped make mini ones for her and her sister, we made normal ones for dh and I. They tasted lovely, and I would definitely make them again, DD1 loved them, DD2 not so keen and picked at them, but she's not so keen on fish.

i made the lazy mayo option, mostly because the girls are too young to be having raw eggs, it was lovely, and I'll maybe make it sometime in the future for dh and I.

Despite my constant lateness of posting, I have really enjoyed being a potato councillor. It's been great getting lots of different ways to use potatoes, no more eing relegated to a side dish! So thank you very much for this opportunity, I'll miss getting my monthly recipes!

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far - we've had a response to your query about boiling/baking zipzap - here's what Potato Council say about it:

"Whether you choose to boil your spuds or cook them in the microwave, both methods have their benefits. As zipzap rightly mentions, nutrients can be lost in boiling, which are kept when microwaving, but let's face it, it'd be very difficult to fit a family of four's potato portions into the microwave! Have you tried steaming your spuds, you won't lose any key nutrients this way?"

Wonder when we will get the vouchers

I was wondering that too moomoo!

Thanks for the feedback on microwaving - glad to know that it's not doing any harm.

And it's actually really easy to fit potatoes for 4 into the microwave - if I'm doing nice little new potatoes it takes about 7-8 minutes. Likewise if I'm doing potatoes cut up to par cook for chips (as per stick them in the oven of previous PC recipe) they are more than done in 5 mins. Whereas if they are cut up into roasting size, probably takes about 8-9 minutes to par cook them well so they just need crisping up.

All comes down to size - if you stick 4 big jacket potatoes in then yes, it will take longer. But if you want mash in a hurry then if you chop the potatoes quite small and have them in a reasonable size microwave saucepan, they will be done in 5 mins, plus you don't need as much water so the mash isn't as wet as it is if the potatoes have been boiled. Or if the potatoes are cut a bit bigger for roasting size then they will take 3-4 mins longer.

It might be worth pointing this out to the Potato Council - I think lots of Potato Councillors on here have noted that their timings were somewhat over-optimistic for being cooked nicely within the 30 minutes they were aiming at. However if they were to switch some or all of the cooking to the microwave, the timings become a lot more do-able within the 30 minutes!

Maybe I'm just sad but I have got to the point that when I finally get around to changing my kitchen I am going to have two microwaves in it (that can both double as ordinary ovens!) as well as a proper oven as I use them so much - either for reheating home made meals from the freezer or for doing veg in, just find it much faster (even having to do things one after another) in the microwave than on the hob, plus there's much less washing up to do. I did a large roast for 8 people recently and cooked all the veg in the microwave, one after each other, re-using the veg water as I went. Timings worked fine - did potatoes then parsnips first as they were being roasted. Then swede (that does need a fair bit of cooking) to be mashed, carrots, finally the assorted greens near the end, other stuff kept warm well. Meant I had lovely tasty water for the gravy, minimal washing up and the kitchen wasn't all streamy like it can be when you have lots of veg bubbling away.

I like to use a steamer for my veg, it has three tiers so can cook quite a bit dependant on the timings of the veg. Plus can steam fish or chicken too.

i've made mayo before.

it's hard, but worth it.

apologies for the late addition - I have been trying to get both my 2 well enough to help out...

anyway, we have now done this, and it went down well enough (ie dd1 wolfed it down - she is on a roll with trying new foods at the moment - and dd2 enjoyed cooking it, tried it, but was not massively keen, as usual)

it was relatively easy to make - mash is always a big feature in dd1's plans, so she was pleased to help out making it into something else. dd2 started complaining at this point, as mash (and fish!) not her favourite...

this is a posh variation of something my mum always used to make for us when we were little - tuna fishcakes - so I knew I would like it. dh was also happy with it.

we used cheats mayo (dd1 has an aversion to the noise of the processor, so stirring into shop-bought mayo was easier).

dd2 was unimpressed that we had another fish recipe (we had the salmon option in the first recipe) but did say they were nicer (due to the crispy bits, thanks to frying) than she thought they would be. I left out the parsley, as mash, fish and too much 'green' woudl have been a killer combo and I doubt we'd have got her to try it!

I have enjoyed taking part in this product test - nothing really startling has come out of it, but it has reminded me about a lot of things I knew I could do with potatoes, but had fallen out of the habit of doing: mashing up with root veg, for eg, or the slicing thinly and baking with salmon fillets - much less faff than cooking potatoes separately, and seems more of a 'dish' than bunging some tatties on the side.

Hi, any news on when we get our vouchers?

Oh I forgot about the vouchers! Have you messaged MNHQ babyinacorner

No easter bunny, i didn't realise you could! Do you know how to?

You could either report the post to get their attention (i have done this before) or email annmumsnet, I will go through my emails and see if i still have one.

I couldnt find an email but have sent annmumsnet a message

I asked the same question last week but she is on holiday until today so will probably have a mountain of mails to sift through. I am hoping soon as I need to do a fooe shop

food lol

Am chasing the vouchers for you councillors...sorry for the delay. thanks

thank you Ann

thanks ann